Output 1.3 Enforcement of immigration law
Overview
This output has six components:
1.3.1 Regulate entry and departure
Highlights
The Onshore Compliance Plan 2006-07 guided the department’s enforcement of immigration law during the year. The plan seeks better outcomes for the department’s clients and is a key response to issues raised in the Palmer and Comrie reports. The plan’s emphasis on the importance of prevention and deterrence has led to new strategies to ensure compliance.
With detention as a last resort, the department actively encourages people to voluntarily regularise their status. As a result, the number of people whose unlawful status is resolved without the need for enforcement action has significantly increased. Intermediaries such as education providers and employers are asked to ensure students and employees hold appropriate visas.
The improved integrity of the department’s compliance work has resulted in increased numbers of unlawful non-citizens being located onshore, against an ongoing reduction of our estimated number of overstayers.
Immigration Status Service
The Immigration Status Service (ISS) allows police throughout Australia to make enquiries into the immigration status of people in Australia who are suspected of being unlawful non-citizens.
This reduces the risk of police inappropriately detaining people who are lawfully in Australia by providing immediate access to up-to-date departmental information and advice. Of the almost 10 000 enquiries received by the ISS, about 90 per cent related to people who were lawfully in Australia.
The ISS operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and police can contact the service through a dedicated 1800 telephone number, by facsimile or email. The service has provided a response to police within 10 minutes in more than half of the enquiries received. The service also forms an important element in the department’s collaboration with police as part of its extended compliance network.
Case management
As part of the department’s commitment to fair and reasonable dealings with clients, the Case Management Service was introduced in late January 2006 in response to the Palmer report. Initially established in NSW and Victoria, case management is now implemented in every state and territory.
The Case Management Service was established to provide an integrated service delivery approach for cases involving vulnerable people and those with complex or sensitive circumstances. It manages people in detention and also those in the community who are particularly vulnerable, such as minors, the elderly, or those with a disability.
Case managers ensure that each person’s case is managed in order to achieve a fair, reasonable, lawful and timely immigration outcome. Case managers also coordinate necessary services according to the person’s individual circumstances, as documented in a case plan, which is based on a comprehensive assessment of the person’s needs.
Case management is focused on early intervention – that is, working with people as soon as possible to ensure they understand how the Australian immigration system works and what role they have in resolving their own immigration status.
By May 2007, more than 830 people were either being case-managed or assessed for case management. Of these, around 60 per cent were in immigration detention and around 40 per cent were in the community.
By July 2006, a total of 46 trained case managers were employed across the department’s network - 18 in New South Wales, eight in Victoria, six in National Office, five in Queensland, three each in South Australia and Western Australia, and one each in the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania.
Community Care Pilot
On 15 May 2006, the department initiated a Community Care Pilot in Sydney and Melbourne engaging the Australian Red Cross to provide practical support to some of the department’s most vulnerable clients. Two IAAAS service providers were also engaged to provide immigration advice and application assistance.
The pilot focuses on the health and welfare, immigration advice and information and counselling needs of the department’s vulnerable clients.
As part of the pilot, the department engaged the International Organization for Migration to provide information and counselling services to help clients to consider and prepare for the possibility of return.
The pilot achieved its referral target of a minimum of 200 people in mid-February 2007 and at 30 June 2007 it was helping 407 clients. Of these, some 225 clients (55 per cent) received community help through the Australian Red Cross and some 250 (62 per cent) received immigration counselling though the International Organization for Migration. Of the 407 clients, 18 per cent had their immigration status resolved.
As part of the 2007-08 Budget, the pilot is to be extended until June 2008 and expanded to Queensland.
The pilot is to be independently evaluated by the end of 2007.
The following case study highlights the complexities associated with working as a case manager in the department.
Ms L was referred to a case manager by Compliance as it appeared she might benefit from inclusion in the Community Care Pilot.
The case manager interviewed Ms L about her circumstances and conducted a comprehensive assessment of her case. Ms L advised that she was willing to depart Australia, but did not have sufficient funds to pay for this. The case manager informed Ms L about the services provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which include provision of information in relation to returning to one’s home country and assistance with departure from Australia.
Ms L agreed to meet with IOM and the case manager arranged a visit to IOM that same day. As well as providing Ms L with contact details for IOM, the case manager printed off a map and provided Ms L with directions.
During the interview with Ms L, the case manager discovered that the client had undergone chest surgery earlier that year. As a result, a fitness to travel assessment was necessary. The case manager arranged for a departmental officer to meet Ms L after her meeting at the IOM premises and take her to Health Services Australia for a medical assessment to determine her fitness to travel by air to her home country.
Later that same day, IOM advised that all the relevant paperwork for Ms L had been completed and departure arrangements were underway. The following day, a copy of the Ms L’s itinerary and ticket was received.
Ms L departed with the assistance of IOM under the auspices of the Community Care Pilot. She did not incur a debt to the Commonwealth. The IOM case officer accompanied Ms L to the airport to offer assistance with luggage and in case extra funds were needed to pay for excess baggage. Within one week of referral to Case Management, the client was on a flight and happy to be returning home. Ms L expressed her sincere gratitude to both the departmental case manager and the IOM officer for their dedication, enthusiasm and timely involvement in assisting her to return to her home and family with dignity.
Systems for People business transformation
The department has made significant progress in improving its compliance, case management, detention and business systems under the Systems for People programme.
The programme, which is a key part of the government’s response to the Palmer and Comrie reports, has been allocated $495 million in new and redirected funding over four years to deliver consistent processes across the department and role-based portals for staff.
As part of this programme an integrated business model is currently being implemented that establishes national consistent business processes and builds in quality control, effective record keeping and decision support tools. These new business processes are incorporated in portals that are being progressively rolled out under the programme.
The first of these portals were for the compliance services, case management and detention (CCMD) portal which was rolled out on 23 April 2007. These portals enable officers to record and monitor the progress of a case along the pathway towards an immigration outcome. They provide a single view of a client’s details, enable better record-keeping, better case management, effective support of quality assurance processes and improved confidence in the integrity and consistency of data. Release 1 of the portals is used by appropriate compliance, case management and detention officers in the department’s National Office and state and territory offices.
A further tool for case managers is the case management handbook, which provides staff with a range of online reference materials. This handbook is made available to case managers and other staff through the portals.
Administration of the character powers of the Migration Act
The Commonwealth Ombudsman released his report on the administration of the character powers (s.501) of the Migration Act 1958 and their application to long-term residents in February 2006. The report highlighted deficiencies in the application of procedures used for cancelling long-term permanent residents’ visas on character grounds. The department acknowledged that there were defects in the administration of the relevant policy and procedures and accepted the ombudsman’s recommendations insofar as they related to administrative reforms.
As well as broad improvements already in place following the Palmer and Comrie reports, which addressed many of the ombudsman’s concerns, the department continued to implement additional measures to improve consistency in the administration of the character powers. In particular, the department implemented centralised processing for cases being considered for cancellation and refusal.
The National Character Cancellation Centre
The department centralised its visa cancellation function with the establishment of the National Character Cancellation Centre (NCCC) in February 2007 as part of its broad reform of the character powers. This followed a number of internal and external and reports which supported the centralisation of the character function.
The NCCC delivers the following key benefits:
- improved consistency in practiceand decision-making
- staffing stability and continuity of expertise and resources
- improved efficiencies through more effective prioritisation of cases and assignment of resources
- more effectiveness in managing deadlines
- consistent identification and management of risks.
The visa refusals function has also been centralised into a single dedicated unit. Offshore visa refusal considerations on character grounds have been processed by a single unit since January 2004. However, with centralised processing, the unit will now process all cases, both onshore and offshore, where consideration is being given to visa refusal.
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
The department continued to support Australia’s trade and investment interests by facilitating the movement of business people within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping by:
- chairing, and providing secretariat and project management support to the APEC Business Mobility Group
- representing Australia in APEC sub-forum meetings
- managing the APEC Business Travel Card scheme on behalf of all participating APEC economies.
The department hosts the APEC Business Travel Card scheme in which 17 of the 21 APEC economies participate and has led changes to make it easier for the remaining four economies to join. The USA and Mexico are moving strongly towards greater participation in the scheme.
There are now more than 23 000 card holders, of which 9000 are held by Australian business people.
The card offers two main benefits for business people:
- it gets them through airports quickly using a priority APEC immigration processing lane, often the lane used by aircrew and diplomats
- it gives them visa pre-clearances, which are valid for three years and allows multiple entries for a maximum stay of at least two months – card holders lodge one application with their home government and, once approved, may travel to other participating APEC economies without having to apply separately for visas.
Working with APEC on border management
The department leads an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) project to strengthen the capacity of APEC economies in using biometrics in travel documents and border management. Another project the department is leading is the Regional Movement Alert System (RMAS) – a counter-terrorism initiative that detects the attempted use of lost, stolen or invalid passports.
RMAS is a world-first in the multilateral accessing of passport data and has demonstrated that countries can establish real-time connections to each other’s passport databases.
Following endorsement of the pilot project by APEC leaders in September 2006, the department has upgraded RMAS to a full production system. Currently Australia, the United States of America and New Zealand are participating in RMAS and the department is working to integrate other APEC member economies into the system.
Building on this success, the second phase of RMAS was implemented in June 2007, enabling the positive validation of passports. RMAS is now able to confirm that a passport is recognised as valid by a Document Issuing Authority and alerts authorities to passports that are not recognised as valid. Positive validation makes RMAS a powerful tool for detecting counterfeit passports.
The ability of RMAS to verify passports with issuing authorities is one of the key features distinguishing it from systems that compile lost and stolen passport data.
RMAS adds another layer to Australian and regional border security and fosters stronger relationships between Australia’s security agencies and their regional counterparts.
Advance Passenger Processing
A key element of the department’s secure and streamlined border processing is the Advance Passenger Processing (APP) system which is used to pre-check passengers before they travel to Australia. The APP system prevents inadequately documented passengers from boarding airlines or vessels overseas and increases the efficiency of incoming passenger processing in Australia for both airlines and the cruise shipping industry.
System enhancements were introduced in early 2004, enabling the department to obtain advance information of all airline passengers (including those transiting) and crew before their arrival in Australia. Currently 48 airlines fly to Australia that must satisfy mandatory APP requirements for both passengers and crew.
APP checking is currently occurring in around of 99.5 per cent of all passenger and crew air arrivals in 2006-07, an increase from 99 per cent in 2005-06 and 98 per cent in 2004-05.
It is mandatory that airlines send APP data to the department for each passenger and crew member at the time of departure to ensure the security of Australia’s borders. In anticipation of the introduction of a legislatively based compliance regime, under which carriers may be infringed for failing to report on passengers and crew flying to Australia, trials of an infringements reporting system have been conducted between the department and all airlines since April 2006. This has given airlines the opportunity to ensure that their internal systems comply with APP requirements.
Airline Liaison Officers
Airline Liaison Officers (ALOs) play a key role in protecting Australia’s borders by preventing and deterring irregular movement of people in the region. In 2006-07, they were involved in 180 interdictions abroad of irregularly documented passengers attempting to travel to Australia, representing a 26 per cent increase over the 143 interdictions in 2005-06.
Border security systems
In 2006-07, as a part of the Systems for People programme, the department continued to develop a border security portal to provide a much improved front-end for users of the department’s main systems for managing border entry and departure.
A milestone was achieved with the successful completion of the Movement Alert List (MAL) Augmentation Search Capabilities (MASC) project to upgrade the name search facility used by the Movement Alert List system. The outcome was an expanded capability for matching names from a wider range of ethnic groups, as well as improved mainframe computer performance.
Border Operations Centre and Movement Alert List
MAL is the department’s principal electronic alert system and forms an integral part of Australia’s national security and border control strategy.
In July 2006, the department created a new Border Operations Centre to bring together the existing Entry Operations Centre and the new Central MAL (CMAL) Operations Section to take over current MAL operations in National Office and to train and prepare for the new CMAL System.
CMAL Operations started a 24 hour, seven days per week processing capability in September 2006 and during the next 12 months the department will continue to work towards a fully centralised alert checking capability. Since December 2006 the CMAL Operations Section has been using a substantially upgraded version of name searching which has markedly improved alert list checking capabilities.
National security
All non-citizens applying to enter and/or remain in Australia are subject to security checking. This is an integral part of the department’s visa issuing processes and includes checking against the Movement Alert List.
To prevent the entry of non-Australians who may pose a threat to national security, the department works closely with Australian security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
Counter terrorism preparedness and response
The department is actively involved in whole-of-government counter-terrorism efforts including membership of such inter-agency forums as the Australian Government Counter-Terrorism Policy Committee and the Australian Government Counter-Terrorism Committee.
In 2006-07, the department participated in the National Counter-Terrorism Committee’s Luminary exercise series, designed to test security preparations for the APEC 2007 series of meetings. The exercises help the department ensure it is prepared to respond to a terrorist incident, particularly through management of the border.
Preventing people smuggling activity
Organised people smuggling is a crime which generally preys on the misfortunes of others. In past years people have lost their lives trying to reach Australia illegally by boat. The department works with other agencies to prevent this activity.
The department provides advice to government on the activities of people smugglers planning or attempting to smuggle people to Australia by air or by sea. Dedicated units in the department assess intelligence on people smuggling activities and distribute reports within the department, to other government agencies including law enforcement agencies and to Australia’s overseas diplomatic missions.
In addition, the department works with several regional counterparts to counter the activities of organised people smugglers and the movement of potential illegal immigrants towards Australia.
New identity management strategic plan
In 2005-06, the department reported that it would be implementing an identity management strategy to provide robust, consistent and effective processes to identify clients. In early 2007 the department finalised a major plan — Identity Matters: Strategic Plan for Identity Management in DIAC 2007-2010.
The plan articulates a vision for the effective identification of people entering Australia and the maintenance of that identity by clients as they interact with other agencies during their settlement or temporary stay.
The strategy is aimed at improving the way the department assesses client identity through the collection of standardised and consistent biographical details, strengthened document verification capability to ensure the credentials that clients provide are genuine and the collection of a biometric identifier to anchor client identity in certain programmes and caseloads. The strategy is an integral component of the Systems for People programme and contributes to the client-focused approach the department is implementing.
International identity initiatives
Australia continued to be actively involved in international identity management initiatives. The department chaired the Four Country Conference Sub-Group on Biometrics and Technology which met in Hong Kong and conducted a successful biometric data sharing trial. The results of the trial were presented to Four Country Conference principals at a meeting held in the Hunter Valley in April 2007. The development of a systematic data sharing programme building on the trial was endorsed at the Hunter Valley meeting. In April 2007 the chair of the sub-group passed to the USA.
Document verification service
A whole-of-government initiative is currently under way to improve identity security and combat crimes related to identity theft. The Document Verification Service (DVS), conceived as part of the Australian Government’s National Identity Security Strategy (NISS), aims to develop and deliver a consistent approach to identity verification across federal, state and territory agencies.
The DVS allows agencies to verify whether documents issued by another agency are likely to be genuine documents according to the issuing agency’s records of the document issue date and details. A DVS pilot was conducted between February and June 2006 involving the department, DFAT and representatives of road transport authorities and registrars of births deaths and marriages from NSW and the ACT.
Following the successful pilot the government decided to implement the DVS on a national basis. At the end of 2006-07 DVS was operating as a pilot service with the involvement of pilot agencies only.
Reduction of multiple client records
In 2005-06, the department identified a goal to have one record for each client. In 2006-07, the department started a project to reduce the number of duplicate client records by implementing business rules to link multiple records and to deal with these records in real time the next time the client interacts with the department.
This capability is to be implemented in 2007-08 as part of the Systems for People programme. It will also enable identification of duplicate records in the department’s Integrated Client Service Environment (ICSE) and the Travel and Immigration Processing System (TRIPS) and provide a baseline from which to report in future programme years.